All images: details from 1947 photo by Margaret Bourke-White
Partition
1947 - The Forever Wandering
A Poem by MICHELE GIBSON
The shy sun fractures and veers off the dome of the gurdwara
The Sardar stokes the fires, warming the giant pots for langar
*
The crowd at the gate heaves and moans
Rising in the parched air to begin again
Some have arrived in the night
Some have departed
Prayer would allude them till evening
All day they will shuffle and writhe
A tangle of people,
Trying to unravel the knotting of history
Trying to secure the frayed ends of family
A mangle of glances, a million eyes
A gesture, an accent, a pause to study a stranger
Where are you from?
Do I know you?
Too weak to dismiss them
Too hungry for more, they press on
In the search for a patchwork of ties
A most sorrowful mingling
But the restoration of a people will exhaust a century,
Will consume every generation
- will be a global resurrection
*
The Sardar thrusts open the windows
But the distance is too far to see
That hope alone lies deep in the eyes of the lucky
At the moment of discovery
And grief will forever be suspended in the eyes of the wandering,
Who will know at a glance what you also have lost
September 2, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Harinder (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India), September 02, 2010, 2:21 PM.
Sikhs have been wandering since the time of the First Guru. He commanded us to "UJARRO" and not become pathologically attached to a piece of land called a village then and today a "NATION".
2: N. Singh (Canada), September 02, 2010, 7:33 PM.
Welcome back, Harinder! Now that Kartar Singh Bhalla and Surinder (U.S.) have been exposed, no doubt we will be hearing more from you. Did the GOI decided to re-assign you to Sikhchic.com?
3: Kirpal Singh (Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.A.), September 02, 2010, 9:12 PM.
Dear Ms.Gibson, Thank you for this beautiful poem, written so skillfully and sentimentally. Hope to see a book of your collected poems in the near future.